Raising Maine

Falmouth has it and as a matter of fact there is a PTO meeting about it this week, guess I should go.

I'm completely against Everyday Math and Investigations as regular curriculum. These "fuzzy math" curricula reject what has worked for schools throughout the world for hundreds of years. Most people here don't know that these types of curricula have been banned in the states that first used them -- California and New York. Kids come out of these programs without mastery of basic skills like the multiplication tables ... or, in the case of Investigations, how to tell time. We use Singapore Math (what California now uses) for homeschooling. It is the math program based on It's very traditional with just enough repetition and review... and guess what? Singapore has the highest math scores in the world! By the end of the 2nd grade Singapore Math is a full grade level beyond the average American public school program... not a surprise since they integrate complex word problems from the beginning, so kids are required to manipulate and apply numbers in novel ways from the beginning. My own opinion is that EM and Investigations also discriminate against kids with slower writing skills because they constantly ask kids to write about how they find answers... not in the math algorithms that are the traditional "math communication," but in sentences. Perhaps this is appropriate at higher grades, but it is a deal breaker for many K-2 kids. Similarly, asking a kid who thinks in math and has an inherent understanding of basic skills to come up with three different ways to subtract a number like 21-9 in the lower grades is nutty. Coming up with strategies for the sake of having extra strategies makes no sense... strategies should be provided for kids who don't "get it" one way and need another explanation. My older son who is gifted in math was completely bamboozled by why you'd need strategies for two digit addition and subtraction -- "It just is!" he'd tell me (but he'd never say this at school). He's nine now and in pre-algebra... after homeschooling with Singapore for the past three years. Not all kids learn as fast as he does, but I do believe that kids going through a traditional program like this will end up more ready for higher math when they get there.

The seeds of Everyday Math and other programs like it started to sprout more than 50 years ago with the launch of Sputnik I by the Soviet Union and the subsequent realization by U.S. educators that our students needed more difficult math and science courses to help the country excel globally. One result of that decision was that the rote-learning focus of math instruction was replaced by one that emphasized the "whys" of math. "Carrying" and "borrowing" were replaced by lessons on re-grouping and learning about ones, tens, and hundreds. That shift was needed and changed how math was taught for years. The problem now is that we've made the "hows" and "whys" of math so important that we've relegated computation to a secondary, undervalued position in some math curricula. Everyday Math is a prime example of the new philosophy, and its inherent spiraling and neglect of mastery have had a negative effect on learning. In addition, good math textbooks on the market today are algebra-based from first grade on, and many questions on standardized tests require students to be knowledgeable about algebra to answer them correctly. I think many Maine schools jumped on the Everyday Math band wagon without researching its any drawbacks thoroughly enough.